Chapter Text
Satoru wakes up- an event that is notable because last he checked, he was in the prison realm, and incapable of falling asleep.
He’s not in the rubble of Shinjuku, and he’s definitely not in the prison realm. He can hear people rummaging around somewhere close by, so he’s not alone. His head hurts, so he leaves his eyes shut while he tries to look around and figure out where he is.
“Gin-san,” someone says, throwing the door open. “Gin-san, you really shouldn’t sleep so long. Do we have a client today? Huh? You need to get up and let me know.”
“What? Who’s that?” another person asks, voice higher and younger. “Shinpachi, that’s not our Gin-chan!”
“What?!” Shinpachi says. “No, it totally is… look at the way he’s sleeping!”
“Nuh-uh, he’s all floppy and sharp like how Gin-chan isn’t,” the girl says, reaching down to poke his face. Satoru decides that’s enough and attempts to sit up and get away only for the girl to shout and pin him to the ground before he can even pull up infinity.
“Ah! Kagura-chan, don’t hurt him!” Shinpachi shouts, futilely trying to pull her off of Satoru. “I still think that might be Gin-san!”
“No way!” Kagura insists, tightening her grip. “This guy’s a loser!”
“So is Gin-san!” Shinpachi insists desperately.
“But in a way cooler way! Gin-chan wouldn’t cosplay as some freaky jump-suit blindfold guy, he’s a samurai! A samurai!” Kagura shouts, punching Satoru’s chest for emphasis. He heals himself right away, of course, but damn, the kid can hit hard. If he wasn’t the strongest, that might have actually been a bad injury- and she doesn’t even seem to be trying to do damage. “This guy looks like he hasn’t washed his hair in weeks, but it’s not curly at all! How do you explain that, huh?!”
“A blindfold?” Shinpachi says thoughtfully. “Then I guess… wait, Kagura-chan. That’s totally Gojo! That’s Gojo from Jujutsu Kaisen!”
“Ah, you know me?” Satoru laughs, and finally activates infinity, slipping out from Kagura’s grip in the process. She gasps indignantly.
He’s not sure what to think- samurai would imply that he’s in the past or something, but the technology here seems pretty modern. These two also know who he is, which is mildly worrying, since he can’t sense any cursed energy from them- although the title from Jujutsu Kaisen is rather nonsensical, and implies that they don’t have the full picture.
“Ah, Kagura-chan, do you think this is a crossover episode or something?” Shinpachi asks, glancing around. “Is that what’s happening? I didn’t think we were notable enough to do something like that… I mean, don’t we usually just take potshots and barely dodge copyright infringement? This is a lot more than we usually risk.”
“Uh… we cosplayed once, right? So it’s fine,” Kagura says, picking her nose. “Yeah, Yuuta?”
Satoru tenses slightly- they definitely know a little too much. They don’t exactly seem competent, but Kagura had managed to pin him easily enough earlier. This could spell-
“No! No way, Kagura-chan! That was just in Ginpachi-sensei’s classroom!” Shinpachi shouts. “Don’t tell lies! That was an alternate universe! An alternate universe! The Shinpachi there is totally different from the one I am!”
“Nu-uh! Glasses are glasses are glasses!” Kagura insists. “Even if you taped a cursed sword to your frame, you still wouldn’t get anywhere special! Me and Gin-chan are the hard-hitters, and you’re just the straight man!”
“That’s not even what we were talking about! And I can totally fight! I’m more of a samurai than you!”
“Patsuan, even your sister’s scarier than you are! Just admit it- you’d need a five-year training arc to even reach a fifth of my power.”
“Don’t say even! Aneue is one of the scariest people I know! And besides, that’s totally not the point here! Stop derailing, Kagura-chan!”
She huffs, and turns back to Satoru. He hasn’t moved at all while they were arguing- but who could blame him? These two are fascinating!
“Shinpachi,” Kagura announces. “Look. Look, these are words- this is archive of our own! We’re in a fanfiction.”
“A crossover fanfiction,” Shinpachi frets. “Ah, so if Gojo from Jujutsu Kaisen is here… then Gin-san’s in Jujutsu Kaisen?! Gah, that universe is super violent! Is this a comedy? This better be a comedy! Things are funny right now, but that could definitely change! What’s this author like?”
“Just check its profile and see what its other fanfiction is like,” Kagura says.
“But this fanfiction is being published anonymously!” Shinpachi wails.
Satoru doesn’t know what the fuck they’re talking about, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t invested.
“W-well, we’re acting pretty normal, right?” Kagura laughs shakily. “I mean, we’re yelling, and seeing past the fourth wall… so that’s in line with Gintama, tonally… so it’ll probably stay like that.”
“Yeah… yeah, that makes sense,” Shinpachi says slowly. “And… and no matter what, Gin-san will be okay. He’s fought in a war before! Those flashbacks are usually serious, and he survived all that, right? He survives all the serious arcs, right? Because he’s the protagonist, right? So even if we transition into something more serious, he’ll definitely be okay.”
The two of them exchange a worried glance.
Satoru looks between the two of them. “Sooo… fanfiction, huh? Jujutsu Kaisen? What’s that? And where am I?”
Shinpachi jumps- Kagura just levels him with an unimpressed glare. “You’re going to be our replacement Gin-chan, huh? Well, you’re not cutting it. You’re not cutting it one bit.”
“Ah, Kagura-chan…” Shinpachi sighs. “Don’t be mean. He doesn’t seem to know why he’s here- it’s not like it’s his fault Gin-san’s missing!”
“We’re not letting him replace Gin-chan, nu-uh,” Kagura insists. “Here… I’ll be the new Gin-chan, and Saduharu can be the new Kagura, and he can be the new Saduharu.”
“Hey, hey,” Shinpachi protests. “You can’t just decide that someone’s a dog! Well, I guess he does seem like the kind of guy to… no! Kagura, let’s talk with him! Seriously! If we work together, we can figure out where Gin-san is!”
“Gin-chan will come back eventually. All run-away children do,” Kagura insists, wandering into the next room and dragging a giant white dog out. “Come on, Saduharu. I need to give your collar to Satoru-haru.”
“Seriously, knock it off!” Shinpachi says, swatting her hands away from the dog’s collar. “We’re really sorry, Gojo-san! You can sit down on the couch, and we’ll make tea.”
“Oh, is he our client now?” Kagura asks, dropping onto a chair behind the desk. “Alright, then… Gura-san on the job!”
“Just be Kagura-chan!!!” Shinpachi huffs before disappearing into the kitchen.
They didn’t answer any of his questions!
“You two are so rude,” Satoru pouts, relocating to the couch. “I mean, using my given name? Do you know who I am?”
“Some jerk from JUMP,” Kagura huffs. “I’ll call you what I want! You’re using our given names in the narration, aren’t you? I can read it, you know! Such a rude boy! We’ll definitely need to train you some more, Saduharu was never this rude.”
“You didn’t tell me your family names,” Satoru points out, stretching out and ignoring whatever the narration is, because it’s not like they’re in a story or anything. Quirky kid. “How am I supposed to call you by something I don’t know, huh?”
“Heh,” Kagura says, smirking. “I don’t have one!”
“So I have to call you Kagura, and you get to call me Satoru,” Satoru says wryly. “I see how it is.”
“No, you get to call me Gura-san,” Kagura insists. “Hey! You’re not listening! You’re not changing the narration!”
“Right,” Satoru says. “Well… I had some questions earlier that you guys didn’t answer, so if we could circle back-”
“Yeah, because they were boring! You know, this is why you’re the dog, now. You barely talk at all! You’re not going to get any screen time like that, you know. Me and Shinpachi will hog all of it with our arguing ‘cuz it’s more interesting than whatever you’re doing and you’ll just stand there confused and dumb forever and someday you’ll die and I bet no one will even notice even though you’re the pov character!”
“It’s because he’s a shinobi,” someone announces grandiosely from behind him. “It’s the kind of stealth only a master of those arts can utilize- one so universal it protects the user even from the gaze of the reader!”
From the kitchen, Satoru can hear a faint, “Uh, no, I don’t think that’s it.”
“Sacchan!” Kagura shouts. “Were you in the vents again?”
“I never leave!”
“Sometimes Gin-chan leaves the house, though.”
“Well, I leave then.”
“But Gin-chan isn’t in the house right now.”
“Well, I was watching him sleep, and one moment he was there, and the next he had been replaced by this loser, so I kept watching to see if he’d come back.”
“Some help you are.”
“I wasn’t trying to help! Gin-san will find me… he will! I don’t need to look for him. Our hearts will guide us back to each other.”
“No, he doesn’t love you.”
“Well, I’ll love him enough to make up for it!”
“Tea,” Shinpachi says, walking back in. “Except not for you, Sacchan. Sorry, but if I made tea for every stalker who ends up coming out while we’re talking with clients, we’d run out of tea really fast, and we don’t have a big enough profit margin to buy it more than once or twice a year.”
“I thought we didn’t have any profit margin,” Kagura says, wrinkling her nose.
“Yes, exactly,” Shinpachi says. “So, Gojo-san, you’re here because you’ve been dimensionally displaced, right?”
Everyone turns to him.
“I forgot he was here,” Sacchan whispers.
“Right, I guess that’s what happened,” Satoru agrees easily. “Wait, did you say dimensionally displaced-? Does this happen often? Where am I right now?”
“Edo,” says Shinpachi. “It’s been about a decade since the Amanto began colonizing Earth. That is- since the age of the samurai ended.”
“I see,” Satoru says. “This is some kind of alternate timeline where aliens invaded during the Edo period. Huh. How do you know my name?”
“Ah, just from JUMP,” Shinpachi says. “And I don’t read it much, personally. That’s Gin-san’s hobby. But I don’t think he reads Jujutsu Kaisen.”
JUMP- they keep mentioning that. Some kind of viewing portal into other dimensions? It’s kind of freaky to be thinking that these guys have been watching him or whatever, but he’s got bigger problems at the moment. Namely: why is he here, and how does he get back home so that he can help his precious students?
“And Gin-san is…” Satoru says, probing for more unrelated information because he doesn’t have very good self control.
“Our Gin-chan!” Kagura shouts.
“He’s- sort of our mentor? No, not really… I mean, Kagura lives with him, but he’s kind of like a dead-beat older brother… oh, but he really is cool sometimes…” Shinpachi muses. “But I can’t say that I’ve ever learned anything from him. Oh, and he’s our boss, I guess.”
“He’s my one true love,” Sacchan sighs.
“That’s not true,” Kagura and Shinpachi say in unison.
“Well, he’s really hot,” Sacchan says earnestly. “He’s the S to my M. His rejection really just serves to get me more pumped up.”
“Ah,” Satoru says, nodding sagely. “It’s that kind of relationship, then.”
“No, not really,” Shinpachi says, exasperated. “Gin-san pretty much just ignores her most of the time.”
Satoru clears his throat. “So, he’s… does he have any responsibilities?”
Kagura and Shinpachi exchange a look, shrugging.
“I don’t know. I don’t think any of his terrorist friends have been by lately,” Shinpachi says. “Well, there’s a few clients, but we can take care of those. Oh! But you’re one of them- you’re trying to get home, right?”
“Right, right,” Satoru nods. “But you know, I’m the strongest- and if I switched places with that guy, I’m perfectly capable of doing everything he does until I get back.”
“Satoru-haru…” Kagura says. She reaches over and pats his shoulder, oddly sympathetic. Wait, doesn’t he have infinity-? “Gintama doesn’t really have power scaling that makes sense. Gin-chan takes care of anything that comes up because he’s Gin-chan, that’s all. But this is a comedy arc so things will be even more wobbly than usual. Sorry.”
“Um, we still appreciate the offer though!” Shinpachi says. “It’s just that you’re our client. We’ll do everything in our power to reverse this displacement! Sit back and relax!”
“Gin-san will probably come find me- us- on his own, anyways,” Sacchan adds.
Shinpachi shakes his head. “Well, anyways, Gojo-san, do you have any idea what could have caused something like this to happen to you?”
“Nope,” Satoru chirps. “Well, last I checked I was locked in the prison realm, but I don’t remember anything that could have changed that.”
“So you got fridged… the fate of every mentor,” Shinpachi nods sagely. “How did it happen? Sorry, like I said, I haven’t read Jujutsu Kaisen.”
“Ah… I got locked in the prison realm?” Satoru blinks.
“A realm…” Sacchan mutters. “That could be a kind of dimensional travel, right? Or if it’s not- hm. Are we sure that Gin-san and this guy swapped place? Or is Gin-san just-”
“Gin-chan won’t die or get fridged because he’s the protagonist, not some crusty old teacher!” Kagura declares. “I said it already, huh? It’s not like anyone calls him sensei!”
“Um… Kagura, we have an entire gag where we call him sensei,” Shinpachi points out. “It’s even turning into a spin-off…”
“Shut up! You said it yourself, that’s a whole other thing, we’re not those people, not really!” Kagura insists.
“The prison realm was a kind of alternate dimension,” Satoru interrupts, forcibly dragging the conversation back on track. Why does he have to be the serious one here? “But I was in there for a while before I ended up here.”
Everyone’s heads snap to him.
“A lead!” Shinpachi exclaims. “Maybe- maybe when you were getting taken out of that place, some kind of wire got crossed and you ended up here and Gin-san ended up there! Ah, but how are we going to reverse it-?”
“I know someone who can help,” Sacchan announces, standing up.
“Oh?” Satoru says. “This kind of thing must happen often, then- and he’s the expert you always have deal with it?”
“No,” says Sacchan. “He just reads JUMP.”